Guitar pedal evolution. We were faced with the difficult decision to take off pedals from our pedalboard to make space for new ones. Too difficult. So we didn’t. Instead… we got a second board 😉
Temple Audio Duo 17 arrived to help us host 3 new pedals we have had our sights on for quite some time. And so we reconfigured the whole signal chain. And the MIDI chain. Again. These three bad boys are the VENTRIS reverb, IRIDIUM amp modeler and HEDRA triple pitch shifter/delay.
Guitar synthesizer ENZO (yellow machine) was moved to the new (smaller) board to make space for the VENTRIS reverb from Source Audio (last row, second from right). We have wanted to have a second reverb to overlay on top of Strymon’s BIGSKY and the VENTRIS filled the bill perfectly. Two reverbs in one box, each with 14 different engines, which can be run in parallel or series. In essence, we got 2 more reverbs, for awesome ambient soundscapes. The VENTRIS is placed downstream from the BIGSKY in the signal chain.Read more...
It was about time for a new entry in the the series on Black & White (B&W) photography. Here, showcasing a few examples of the vast genre of Street Photography. As before, these are all monochromatic renderings of digital photography files rendered in Lightroom applying the Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin.
A hard-to-find, early interview with composer and guitar virtuoso Ralph Towner, rescued from the original issue of Guitar Player magazine of December 1975.
“I didn’t even know what a guitar was until I was 22… I went to a music store to buy a trumpet mute or music paper, something like that, and there was this salesman type there who sold me a classical guitar. I taught myself a little bit, and then wrote a composition for flute and guitar.“
It can be considerably frustrating to have to summarize many years of work in just 150 words, but that is what scientists often have to do at the time of writing the Abstract section of their research papers. However, a well written Abstract is crucially important, as it is the first thing (sometimes the only thing!) that readers will read, including the journal Editors that will decide about its publication. It can really be a make-it-or-break-it for the success of the article. However, many young and budding scientists often struggle with this section, usually because of an inability to distill the single most important and essential part of the discovery in a clear and simple way. Read more...
All aboard the pedalboard… it’s boarding completed. No more space in our pedalboard after the addition of Meris ENZO synthesizer, Morning Star MC6 MkII MIDI controller and Mision Engineering EXPRESSIONATOR expression pedal controller. From the previous version, a few pedals had to be relocated and other squeezed closer together to make room. There are a total of 52 switches and 60 knobs on this pedalboard.
ENZO is an incredible sound machine, with four engines for mono synthesis, polyphonic synthesis, arpeggiator and a dry mode with tons of effects. With delay onboard, portamento, sustain and incredible filtering capabilities, the ENZO is an endless source of possibilities and inspiration. All reviews have ranked ENZO as the number one pedal of 2018. Here is a looped little tune that we did recently using all four ENZO machines:Read more...
Once upon a time, science journals were run by scientific societies and their editors were active scientists. Very few of these remain today. Instead, nowadays most journals are own by private, usually very large, publishing companies and their editors are “professional”. That is, their only job is to be journal editors, they are not active scientists. Most of them were active scientists earlier in their career, but left academia to become “professional” editors, usually, shortly after their postdoctoral studies. Because of this, most professional editors are much younger (no problem there) and considerably more inexperienced (hmmm… ) than the principal investigators from whom they receive manuscripts for consideration. Typically, these “youngish” editors can get advice and (one would hope) guidance from more senior editors within the same journal or publishing organization, but they are pretty much in charge of the main decisions of the manuscripts assigned to them.Read more...
NUS team develops man-made molecule that can ‘kill’ skin cancer cells
Professor Carlos Ibanez says the use of the molecule to activate the “death receptor” of melanoma skin cancer cells presents an option for a new treatment method for the remaining 45 per cent of melanoma skin cancer patients for whom current treatment fails. Photo: NUS Yong Loo Lin School Of Medicine.
Here is an update to the electric guitar pedal board that we started one and half year ago. Click on the image below to enlarge. (And go to the full post for a pic of the cable jungle underneath!).
In the top view, we can see some new additions: a Wampler EGO compressor (top right) replaces the mini EGO, and a Strymon BigSky reverb machine replaces the BlueSky. Also, the Neunaber Iconoclast speaker emulator, previously featured outside the board, is now on it (left).
There is also a some news about connectivity (arrows). Instrument inputs remain the same, with the switch that toggles between guitar #1 and #2 in between them. Above them, there are 4 outputs. Normal unbalanced outputs (left and right stereo channels) come right after the effects chain (minus Iconoclast). Below them, balanced outputs coming after the Iconoclast.Read more...
